good evening for what is normally "rock center" at this hour this time every friday night. tonight it's a bit more like an extension of our live news coverage for the past 24 hours certainly all day long today and all through the evening tonight. it turned into a remarkable evening and it ended well meaning the suspect in boston, the younger of the two brothers was apprehended alive. he's being treated at the hospital. what a terrible toll these two

brothers, these two suspects, one of them now dead, what a terrible toll they leave behind. it all ended tonight as one law enforcement official put it with a whimper inside a boat in a trailer in a backyard in watertown, massachusetts, and then it ended with a genuine cheer. all of those first responders, cops, firemen, as they exited town, the town that was terrorized by a gun battle in the streets last night, they were all cheering and they had a chance to shine, bask in the glow of joyful citizens who were just thankful they came in, they rode in to save the day. kate snow was there amid all of it tonight. she is joining us tonight to start it all off. kate, good evening. >> good evening to you, brian. let's remember what this week has been like. a week that seemed like it would

never end in boston. on monday devastating bombings at the marathon. last night the fbi holds a press conference showing video and pictures of two key suspects and asking the public for help. the first sign of a major development in the manhunt came at 10:00 p.m. eastern time on thursday. five hours after the fbi news conference. in cambridge, across the charles river from boston, surveillance video showed one of the suspects at a convenience store. former fbi terrorism task force don. >> confident that we would have have success. never dreamed it would unfold in the manner in which it did. >> a short time later at 10:20 p.m. there was a report of gunfire at the nearby massachusetts institute of technology, m.i.t. at 10:30 p.m., an m.i.t. campus police officer was found shot to death in his vehicle. he was later identified as sean

collier. it wasn't over. now an armed carjacking of a black mercedes suv. its driver held hostage at g gunpoint for half an hour. as they sped through the streets, the suspects shot at police and threw explosive devices from the speeding car. a police officer was seriously wounded. in watertown around midnight, lindsay gaylord and her boyfriend found themselves in the center of the storm. >> there were 30 cops on foot running toward us on the opposite side. >> it was surreal. it felt like a movie. >> as more than 200 rounds were fired, a resident called 911. >> i heard explosion after explosion. i crouched down in my doorway and i saw the bullet come from here through there.

>> you saw it. >> i saw it happen. it was so scary. >> shortly after 1:00 a.m. eastern time, adam williams was caught in the crossfire nearby. >> we're taking cover behind the local police vehicles. >> these are bullet holes inside a home. we spoke to them via skype because they were on lockdown. >> we were crawling through the hallway and we saw a big flash out front and there was an explosion with glass. >> another resident described what he was witnessing to msnbc using skype. >> i'll walk it here. it's angled right now at the bomb squad. >> michael says he saw what happened next. >> the guy out front shooting it out with the cops and i see an officer and him about 30 feet

apart shooting at each other. craziest stuff i ever seen. >> police this man, the suspect in the black hat had gotten out of the mercedes suv and was strapped with explosives. he was hit by police fire and was free throw nounspronounced hospital. the other man ran over the man we later learned was his own brother. >> the cops jumped out of the way right in time before it ran over the brother and dragged him 35 feet up the street. >> at 5:45 a.m., all boston public transportation shutdown. at 6:30 a.m., amtrak suspended service in and out of boston. then as morning arrived, the world learned -- >> authorities say the two are brothers. >> the dead brother was identified as tamerlan tsarnaev. 26 years old. the brother on the run, dzhokar tsarnaev. >> we had a term for these tier

1 terrorists. we call them bomb chuckers. we have a real life bomb chucker on the loose. >> around boston every day life ground to a halt. police department made emergency calls to residents. >> stay indoors until further instructions. >> just after 10:00 a.m. this is what neighborhoods looked like. police on the street. helicopters overhead. nearly 1 million people in six different communities have been simply told to stay indoors after an anxiety filled week it's a day like nothing boston has ever experienced. nbc news correspondent kerry sanders was on the "today" show from watertown when police told him to take cover. >> the officers started yelling get down. >> the uncle of the surviving brother pleaded with his uncle. >> if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness from the victims, from the injured. >> just as dusk was falling

tonight, another break in the manhunt and for the second night in a row a suburban boston neighborhood was on pins and needles jarred by something that sure sounded like gunfire. after more than 24 hours of searching, police seem to finally have the remaining suspect in the marathon bombings cornered. police say a resident here in watertown called in to report blood in a backyard leading to a boat where police believe the suspect was hiding. as an ambulance left the area around 9:00 p.m. eastern time tonight -- >> the suspect is in custody. >> the crowd cheered. in the end, it had all come down to ordinary citizens rallying to help the authorities. the younger brother now in a boston hospital undergoing treatment and of course authorities would very much like to talk to him. back to you. >> kate snow, a lot of lessons learned but on the upside while there were rumors and fits and starts, this was a kind of rollout experiment for a crowd

sourced manhunt spread via media but more importantly social media. >> that's right. the minute they put those pictures and video out last night it just took off. people started calling giving tips. they flooded local authorities and that is probably certainly part of what led to the downfall of the second suspect here tonight. >> kate snow starting off our coverage covering the story tonight. kate, thanks. our chief foreign correspondent richard engel in the studio with us tonight. there's a lot of ground to cover. you find meaning in the most interesting things that we have witnessed tonight. and that is from the applause that came at the end of the night to the people who saved the day to the fact that this suspect is alive. why those two things. >> i thought those were the two things that struck me about what we saw today. first that he's alive because now he can be debriefed and we can answer all of those

questions that counterterrorism officials have been asking themselves and looking into all day. were these just two brothers who decided to motivate themselves who according to their internet trail were looking at jihady websites about pakistan and chechnya and decided to do something for the cause and put bombs or were they actually in contact with groups outside of the country. he's alive. we can know that. we can find out if there's other organizations out there affiliated with them. were they planning other attacks or did they set other bombs out. that's very, very important. the second thing is the applause. it's not just a feel-good movie. this has national security implications. all day in terrorist chat rooms where they were celebrating this like you have no idea. saying this was a great idea. inviting other lone wolves or want to bes to do the same

thing. all day they said the people of boston are terrorized, look at them cowering in their homes and then instead we saw the people of boston come out onto the streets and thank their police officers, embrace themselves, not cowering but clapping. that shows that this didn't succeed. people are willing to get up and go about their daily lives. >> the actions of citizens of watertown, massachusetts, that expression will be seen and heard overseas? >> the point of all of this is to terrorize people. that's the point of terrorists. there is a perception in this mindset that americans are weak, we're a consumer society, that we're spoiled, that we're soft and that the little chink in the armor and the whole system starts to collapse. that's why you punish the people there. the soft targets. and instead when people come out

and say we are not willing to be coward. we're soft targets. you can attack us. we won't give in. that shows a kind of resolve that terrorists don't expect to find in a capitalist consumer country like this like in boston. will that register with the militants? probably not. they're going to say we won. it will register with some that it didn't work. >> i'll say it as the period at the end of the sentence a lot of us did not like where this transported us back to. i know you among them having spent a better part of a decade covering two wars. richard engel, thank you for your advice and counsel and expert eye tonight. the mother of these two suspects said in an interview this evening she thought it was all an fbi setup. she said nothing in my sons' computers has gone unseen by the fbi for years. the father, you'll hear from him in a moment. people who knew both of these young men used words like kind,

friendly, warm, and approachable. what a huge disconnect between those words and what these two young men did. our report on these two suspects tonight from nbc's ann curry. >> in a telephone interview this evening, the father of the bombings suspects denied his sons had anything to do with terror. >> translator: you could kill me but i would never believe they had anything to do with this. >> how do you explain why authorities are saying that your two sons are suspected of terrorism? >> translator: this is nonsense. it doesn't add up. >> why would your sons be angry at america? why would your sons want to bomb and hurt people in america? >> translator: they would never, never, never do that in their lives. these boys were raised well. it's not physically possible they would be angry and bomb

america. >> he also told us the fbi had been watching his family and had visited their home in cambridge five times most recently a year and a half ago. >> why was the fbi watching your family? >> translator: they said they were doing preventive work. there were afraid there would be explosions on the streets of boston. >> he said he last spoke to his sons just after the marathon and they assured him they were okay. he brought his sons to cambridge from russia more than ten years ago. tamerlan, 26, who was killed in a firefight earlier this morning attended community college and wanted to become an engineer. an avid mixed martial artist he told boston university magazine he wanted to become an american citizen and join the u.s. olympic boxing team. while he was a snappy dresser and drove a mercedes, tamerlan is quoted as saying "i don't have a single american friend. i don't understand them." his wife and 3-year-old daughter are seen here being escorted by

investigators today. her mother released a statement from her rhode island home. in the aftermath of the patriots day horror, we know we never knew tamerlan tsarnaev. our hearts are sickened by the who a horror he has inflicted. his 19-year-old brother was still on the run. he became a u.s. citizen last year and registered as a student at the university of massachusetts on his russian student profile he says he's single and lists priorities as career and money and claims his world view is islamic. >> that doesn't make sense. it just doesn't add up. >> tell me about your friendship. >> we met in high school. ninth grade. our friendship sort of developed over time as most relationships do throughout high school. it wasn't until sort of the end of senior year where things

really solidified because i started working as a lifeguard with him at harvard university. we worked together. we did model u.n. together. we came to new york. >> you even had a crush on him? >> i even had a crush on him. whenever i spoke to him i felt safe. >> ironic you use the word safe given the events. >> this is something i'm still struggling with. i don't really understand how the one i knew and the one publicized throughout the media don't matchup at all. >> rose says that dzhokar was close to his older brother tamerlan. >> dzhokar and his brother were different people. maybe his experience was different than that of his

brother's. he came here when he was younger. >> would you characterize him as an american kid? >> absolutely. yeah. definitely. he knew slang words and cool words to use than i did. there's no language barrier. he was what i might term a typical cambridge boy. >> the suspect's father confirmed to us today that the elder brother spent six months in russia last year. he also had this message for police. >> translator: they killed one of my sons. i want at least the other son to live so that in the world court we can prove he's innocent if god allows. >> if you could speak to your son, what would you tell him? >> that i love him and i can't live without him. >> ann curry on these two suspects in this case. one living in serious condition

tonight. one dead. now, as i was saying, when we come back from the break, we'll go to massachusetts bay state native anne thompson. what this has done to boston and what tonight feels like in boston.

we are back now and go as advertised to massachusetts native anne thompson in copley square tonight. i grew up in a baseball and football broken home. dad from boston who eventually rooted for the mets while i grew up rooting for the yankees and new york football giants but i've put all of that aside this week because boston is the priority and around this time

last night it seemed like an insane world of hurt had been brought on that very resilient city. >> it's an extraordinarily resilient city. tonight the president said that boston refused to be intimidated and that is so true. it was a very strange day in this city. i can tell you the lockdown turned boston into almost a state of martial law. in the public garden we saw the swan boats were just sitting there. they were floating in the lagoon. nobody was there. they have been a boston tradition for over 130 years. in the boston common there were more s.w.a.t. teams than people. usually that's a place where workers and runners go by the thousands. the freedom trail which is the red brick line that takes children and tourists to historical sites in this city connected to the american

revolution, no one was walking the freedom trail. it was a very unusual day. and yet even though people were inconvenienced, even though they were told to stay in their homes, people i talked to as the lockdown went on they all said one thing. they didn't want this suspect to be killed when he was captured. they wanted him to be taken alive because more than anything they want answers as to why those two men did what they did to the city of boston, to the boston marathon and to this country because people don't understand how somebody could leave bombs in a crowd of people on the greatest day in this city and take lives and change lives forever. >> and yet so oddly, anne, it's suddenly all lifted. it's all gone. one guy dead. one guy in the hospital. it was just those two. we are all but convinced and tomorrow may be a perfectly

ordinary or spectacular day in boston. >> it is gone in this sense. the red sox will play tomorrow at fenway park taking on the kansas city royals. that will be a way to get things back to normal. i was struck tonight listening to the governor and all of the police officers after the suspect was captured. the first people they mentioned were the four people who died. and that is first and foremost in the minds of the people here in boston. the loss of life and then those who are still in the hospital. the people who have lost limbs, who have suffered shrapnel injury. there's a great sense of relief that this at least the first phase of this is over. the suspects, one captured, one

killed. for the city there's a long road to recovery and this was just the first big step. >> what an obscene toll of damage by these two men. thanks. we have an update on the cochran family whose suffering after the bombing moved so many people around the world to heard their story. the mother had both legs amputated and the frantic effort to help her daughter became one of the sadly enduring images of this tragedy. tonight their family is speaking to natalie morales for the first time. >> it's a very tense situation in watertown. >> as the nation watched the events unfold over the last 24 hours, kevin corwatched too. kevin has been here since monday ever since his wife and their

17-year-old daughter were seriously injured at the marathon. their son, tyler decided to stay home at the last minute. the rest of the family was at the finish line waiting for her sister to cross. >> i had turned to look at friends to my left and behind me about 10 or 15 feet. they were holding up signs. we would look at them and say something to each other. do you see her. what have you. >> i wouldn't wait to see if everyone was crazy at mile 22 and mile 19. what's it going to be like when i run down boylston. >> it happened just as she neared mile 26. when the bomb went off and it hit you, what was happening around you, what did you first notice? what went through your mind? >> i have a vivid memory of seeing my daughter and my friends being blown back, falling backwards. my daughter's arms outstretched

like this and just falling backwards. i think my wife took the brunt of the impact. when i turned back around, she was no longer there and nobody was standing up anymore in front of me. so for a couple of seconds i just looked left and right and then looked down and there she was. >> your wife? >> my wife. i saw her eyes were open and at this point i don't realize this is a bomb exploded. i see her eyes open. i know she's alive and then i start looking around and there are limbs everywhere and blood and i looked on her body to see if she's okay and i notice her legs. and that's when it hits you. this is obviously some type of terrorist related event, whatever you want to call it and that's when it got real. instinct just takes over. you take your belt off. you yell to a guy who was running toward me.

he gave me his belt. i put on another one and i just lay down next to her. and just told her i loved her and that everything would be okay. and i kissed her face and just gently caressed her while people were trying to get to us. i stayed with her laying down in this carnage in the blood just holding onto her until the professions came over and took over. >> kevin thought his daughter, sidney, was okay. he didn't realize she had also been serious wounded. shrapnel severing her femoral artery. strangers hovering over her and comforting her. >> after i realized i could not look for my daughter, i just entrusted to humanity and there had to be somebody out there taking care of her. >> one of those people was matt smith. he helped stop the bleeding. >> he kept her calm.

>> he kept her calm. >> meanwhile at the finish line, carmen was looking for her family amid the chaos. you were there near the finish line. your husband, your three kids were there too. >> they were there waiting for me. i was terrified that my family was all gone. everyone that i loved was there. >> carmen finally found them and then rushed to the hospital to be with her sister and kevin. the injuries were so severe doctors had to amputate both her legs below the knees. an hour after the bombing, the family discovered sidney was being treated in the same hospital but it wasn't until kevin spoke to her doctor that he realized how seriously sidney was injured. >> i asked him on no uncertain terms because i needed to know just myself, what's your opinion? how bad was this? he said this was a mortal wound and if the people did not get to

her when they did, she would have bled to death. >> those people saved her life. >> i'll never frorget those words. >> matt visited her in the hospital. >> i spoke with him first and thanked him. we both cried together. and he's a very gentle, kind, nice person and i'm thankful that he was there that day. >> i know that your wife and your daughter now are recovering together in the same room. >> they are. they were very accommodating, the hospital, which has been doing a fantastic job. put them together in what i believe is one of the larger rooms on the floor so they could be side to side. >> they have the best relationship. they are joined at the hip. they are the mother and daughter that anyone who has a daughter wants to emulate. >> both underwent further surgery today but the family says their spirits are strong.

a resilience carmen recognized the first time she visited her sister in the hospital. >> i gave her a kiss on the forehead. she looked at me and said i can't believe i didn't see you finish this thing. >> in all of this. >> in all of this she found out she lost both legs and she said that. i am going to be with you every step of the way to get you back on your feet and to be able to conquer this and i will. that's what we do any way. that's our family. we have a really special family. >> kevin, i know you are looking at a very long, long recovery time here for both your wife and daughter. what do you need? >> what occurs to anybody in this situation is how are you going to afford to pay for everything? the overwhelming response from

the community out of know where are texting and tweeting to the family website so you realize that with their help you are going to be able to get through this and pay the bills. >> grateful for the help of others but most grateful to still have each other. >> it just hits you. life will never be the same but she can hug me and i still have her. she's my very best friend and i'm just so thankful to have her in whatever capacity i do. >> after everything they have been through, kevin has a message. >> we're still going to be there. there's nothing you can do to quell the human spirit and you failed. you failed at what you did. >> don't know how these families are possibly coping. we have put a link to their family website that he mentioned on our website tonight for all of those wishing to help the

corcoran family in the days and tough weeks ahead. when the all clear was sounded tonight in boston, the president spoke from the white house briefing room. we'll have part of that for you coming up next. [ male announcer ] why is kellogg's crunchy nut so delicious? because every flake is double-toasted... splashed with sweet honey... and covered in rich double-roasted peanuts. mmm. [ hero ] yummy. [ male announcer ] kellogg's crunchy nut. it's super delicious!

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>> this is just one scene of celebration in boston tonight. after we got the all clear and after the officials held their press conference tonight, the president used that as his cue to walk into the white house briefing room. here is part of what he said to the nation. >> we will determine what happened. we will investigate any associations that these terrorists may have had and we'll continue to do whatever we have to do to keep our people safe. one thing we do know is that whatever hateful agenda drove these men to such heinous acts will not, cannot prevail. whatever they thought they could ultimately achieve, they already failed. they failed because the people of boston refused to be intimidated. they failed because as americans

we refuse to be terrorized. they failed because we will not waiver from the character and the compassion and the values that define us as a country. nor will we break the bonds that hold us together as americans. >> white house said by the way the president was doing tonight what the whole country seemed to be doing tonight. he was sitting in the white house residence for his part and he was watching all of these live developments unfold on television. a restaurant called the forum on boylston street in boston has become something of a grim landmark of this tragedy after one of the bombs blew up right outside its patio. the restaurant also played host to some of the very best spirit of boston as the staff there sprung into action before the smoke had even cleared. harry smith went to visit the people who run a bar where everybody really does know your

name. >> all week long we have looked at pictures of forum restaurant, site of monday's second explosion. this is what it looked like before the blast. cheering fans celebrating the marathon and patriots day. until now we haven't heard from the people working inside. forum is still a crime scene so we met at another location. what was it like in the restaurant monday morning? >> it was exciting. i remember getting in just before 8:00 and turning the music up and it was just very upbeat, sunny day. >> chris is the general manager of forum. 200 yards from the marathon finish line. >> it was just such a beautiful day. everyone is excited for the marathon to watch the race and for the red sox game. >> julie is a former forum bartender who came back to work just for patriots day. what did you write on your facebook page? >> at 6:00 in the morning i wrote coming back for one last

special stint at my favorite bar in my favorite city on my favorite day. >> no one had an inkling of what was about to happen. the restaurant and its patio out front were getting more crowded by the minute. where were you when you heard the first explosion? >> i was two feet behind the host stand up in the front of the restaurant. >> what did you think? >> i thought it was a cannon or some sort of celebration. something or other. >> joshua is an assistant manager. after the initial blast up the street, most of the restaurant's patrons moved toward the front to try to figure out what was going on. it was the worst place they could be. where were you when the first explosion happened? >> right in front by the vip section. i thought it shook the building a little bit and people all around me started pressing forward to crane their next to look forward to look down the street to see what it was.

>> before anyone could understand the nature or the source of the first explosion, the second bomb blew up directly in front of the restaurant. the second explosion happens. what's the first thing you remember? >> i was looking right out and there was a mailbox right there and i was looking at the mailbox when it blew up so i saw the orange fire. it looked like a huge firecracker like an m-80 or something. as loud as the first one was, the second one i don't recall hearing it to be honest with you. my mouth was full of grit. for some reason it was just like dirt or dust or something. my whole mouth was just gritty and dirty. is this really happening? and just people are falling and glass everywhere so i was just worried about people falling on the glass and everybody was running toward the back and people were diving behind couches and it was just chaos.

>> heather was also bartending that day. >> i remember it hitting me that it was something someone was trying to hurt people. it was intentional. this was the second explosion. i remember screaming and then i remember getting my bearings and looking up and just seeing people run. >> the able bodied and slightly injured rushed out the back exit but not the employees. they stayed facing a scene of carnage that was difficult to comprehen comprehend. julie, does anything prepare you for witnessing what you witnessed? >> no. it's instinct. you just go and do what you can to help people. the first thing i did was checked on my friends that were on the ground and then i grabbed ice and towels and then i went out to the front and that's when

i just saw complete nightmare massacre. there was blood. there was people in the streets on the sidewalks on the patio and, you know, there was a body part here that i saw and there was something else over there but there was so much blood and you don't stop and think. you don't give yourself a chance to realize what is actually going on. >> forum employees became first responders. >> the most injured people were out just in front of the patio but because of the uncertainty people were bringing them into the restaurant to try to aid them. there were members of our staff that were right there holding onto people, taking their belts off to stop bleeding and different things like that. >> many of the people the forum staff helped were strangers. others they knew well. quite well. like julie's friend, heather

abbott. >> she's actually in the hospital right now. she was getting surgery today. they were trying to reattach her foot. >> all of it is so traumatic. to have someone you know and a friend of yours almost have her foot -- >> you feel guilty. >> you feel guilt? >> uh-huh. >> why would you feel guilty? >> thinking that she's there to see me. >> forum became a makeshift triage center aiding and comforting the wounded was the only concern. >> you talk about what people did to help and you say we bandage up injuries and stuff like that. my most enduring images is my bartender sitting on the floor and he had a injured woman's

head on his lap and he was just stroking her hair comforting her. that was to me all she needed in a horrible time it was a beautiful thing to see. something so simple. >> what makes you say i'm staying here, i'm going to help these people? >> i think it's just human nature. it's the nature of the people that work at forum. it's the nature of a lot of people from boston. you see someone hurting and you want to help. >> an instinct so strong that even when ordered to leave, no one budged. >> it was funny. once the police came in, i remember so vividly them saying everyone get out. everyone get out. and us saying, no. it was one of the few things that you could say to a police officer. >> in language perhaps a little more colorful than that. >> perhaps a little more bostonian and color than that,

yes, sir. >> only one forum employee was seriously hurt but he's doing fine. the reality of what happened monday is still sinking in. >> it's amazing to me that more people weren't killed in that explosion. amazing to me more people weren't hurt. i look at the pictures of them prying out ball bearings out of the awning at work and i know there was nothing between me and that explosion. i don't know how it didn't -- i'm lucky i'm alive. lucky i wasn't hurt. lucky these guys weren't hurt. it's amazing. >> at the end of the day after i had a chance to reflect on everything, i was angry. i was so angry. people took this great day, this great holiday, this amazing day, it's everyone's favorite day in boston, and ruined it. >> stunning to me to think you really are at the heart of the terror and you all stayed.

are you heros? >> no. >> no. >> some people have said what he we did was heroic. we were in the wrong place at the wrong time but we did the right thing. >> our thanks in more ways to one to the staff of forum restaurant. a good place to stop in if you find yourself on boylston in boston. about what we have been through now that the smoke has cleared, we're joined by a former special agent of atf with us from nashville. mr. cavanaugh, i'm curious now looking at this in our rearview mirror, what worried you most about what we learned about these two guys and what cheered you much about the way it was resolved? >> i think the thing that worried me most after it broke and tuesday was this is the beginning of a bombing campaign.

i think it really was. and that's evidenced by the pressure cooker that was tossed at the watertown police and the eight smaller improvised hand grenades that these guys had already made. these things were in the cache before the marathon bombs were planted. these bombers come right out of the hallways of hell. they plant them in the crowd. vicious devices. if they had got away, they would do it again. so the calculation for the commanders on tuesday, i've been there before in the sniper case and in the eric rudolph case and been there on a series of bombings at abortion clinics and other killers and i always knew that you got to watch. they're coming back. the key for them to release that picture and leverage the

citizens and the digital age and leverage the power of the media, i said on one of the nbc shows, they'll have them wrapped up. they'll know who they are before the sun rises on the boston harbor and it was only a few hours. >> so we'll take that. i agree with you on both. sadly, i think you're right. we stumbled across and interrupted a bombing campaign more than stumbled across. they brought it to us and i agree with you. this was the first of a new era. crowd sourced social media use in a manhunt and in this case, the good guys won in the end. mr. cavanaugh, thank you very much for being with us tonight from nashville, tennessee. >> thank you, brian. >> we'll take another break. we'll check in with kate snow after this.

>> we have been relying heavily on the coverage of one of our sister network, new england cable news during this entire crisis in the boston area and tonight one of their reporters got closer than the others and heard a lot as this unfolded. scott, where were you and you could actually hear the s.w.a.t. teams at least trying to talk to the suspect, correct? >> we were behind the house where they converged initially and we saw the firefight. there were a number of shots fired. they were firing at the suspect. apparently he was firing back according to some police officers that i spoke to. we saw the flash bangs going off trying to stun him. all that time we could hear a

single officer yelling to him, yelling the suspect's name, and he would say you're hurt. you need a doctor. you need to give yourself up. come out with your hands up. >> scott, i have to tell you, we heard a negotiator was going in and i was amazed there was still a living suspect to be negotiated with after those two volleys of gunfire. i don't quite understand what transpired. >> we haven't been able to find that out exactly. what i can tell you is that it was amazing to see law enforcement officials work together in concert in tandem with officials calling shots about what they were doing to go in and isolated the suspect. they wanted to take this guy alive and they did. >> it seems that one aspect at least everything worked and we were very fortunate tonight.

you heard more than the s.w.a.t. teams bargained for. thank you for your firsthand reporting tonight. thank you very much. kate snow has been in watertown tonight and, kate, tomorrow it seems to me gets very interesting because while the temptation tonight and who can blame them is to be happy there was a resolution tonight, we've got a suspect. he's in serious condition. he's in the hospital. that cloud of my goodness all these victims stay with us, they stay in the lives of boston, and then the investigation gets under way in earnest. >> right. let's not forget both of those things. the investigators are going to have a huge task ahead of them. we've talked to former fbi officials who say they will now have to go through and sift through all of that evidence that they've gathered. we saw them taking computers and other evidence out of homes over the course of today and yesterday so they'll go through that. they'll try to figure out who

these young men were in contact with and what their communication was about and what online activity was about. they'll be talking to family and friends and get a sense for when they might have flipped to wanted to hurt people. they'll talk of course to the survivor who is in the hospital. the surviving accused terrorist. they'll talk to him about everything he did. but let's not also forget that as you say, brian, there were 176 people wounded here. three people died on monday in the marathon bombing. that's going to haunt this city for a long time to come. people are recovery. people are happy tonight and relieved and less anxious but there are still a lot of people in the hospital. tonight 54 people remain hospitalized. two of them are children. a lot of them lost limbs. they're going to have a long recovery ahead of them. one hopeful note, brian, just to mention, there's a lot of u.s. military people coming here and offering support. people who lost limbs in the war coming here now and trying to

help these victims to move on with their lives and telling them that they will run once again. >> that's one. true truly tragic aftereffects. the wounds are the same as combat battle injuries we've seen overseas because of the heinous way these explosions were designed. kate snow, thank you very much for your reporting all night tonight from a newly happy watertown, massachusetts. finally tonight before we go off the air, let's spend our last minute or so talking about boston because as we've been discussing this has been an assault on boston. no one who knows that city has any doubt about that city, its people or what they are all made of. last night and today that was really insult on top of real injury. think for starters about the children in that city who were forced to stay home on this

scary day while being told not to go near the windows or the doors because there might be a bad man outside in their neighborhood. and if you're like a lot of us, when somebody says boston, well you think of sports teams and perhaps the ultimate indignitiy after the week they had they couldn't go to tonight's bruins hockey game. they couldn't go to a red sox game at fenway. they couldn't gather at the old place to blow off steam to cheer on the home team or even if they wished to feel bad together, both of those games tonight postponed. but those boston sports fans will be back, the seats will be filled and some day it will feel normal again and as it turned out, the people of boston did find a way to cheer tonight. they cheered those cops as they drove out of town after saving the day and they gathered outside fenway any way and they just cheered for their city

after its worst day. we have much more tomorrow. a special saturday "today" from boston with matt, savannah and lester. for everyone here, good night. thanks for watching "watch center" on this eventful friday. d to double-check the temperature on the thermometer, be ready. for high fever, nothing works faster or lasts longer. be ready with children's motrin.

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